Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 1936. MIGRATION PROBLEM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 77, 13 January 1936, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 1936. MIGRATION PROBLEM.

The announcement that the Federal Government has not yet formulated any definite plan with regard to a migration policy with Britain, has reference to the views Mr Malcolm MacDonald expressed in Britain some weeks ago, when he said that there was necessity for encouraging migration within the Empire. In theory the two Dominions in this part of the world should be best situated to receive migrants. Both are sparsely peopled, having regard to their surface possibilities of development, both are free from the racial and other difficulties affecting South Africa, and, to a lesser degree, Canada. Yet the prospects in neither are good at the moment. Each has a problem of employment which, until conquered, makes it impossible to accept any considerable or organised inflow of population. That handicap must eventually be removed. To suggest that it cannot be is to adopt the defeatist attitude toward present difficulties. But even when it is, there remains another obstacle in the way. It relates to trade overseas. In the past the ideal of a rapidly-increasing population\by means of immigration was based on the prospect of a steadily-increasing output of primary produce, to be exported and sold in open markets of the world. Conditions, however, have changed materially, especially since the Great War with its aftermath of acute depression and the keen struggle for economic existence. Even essential foodstuffs now have no unrestricted market. Tariffs are not the only barrier. Britain, the reservoir of manpower seeking an outlet, has joined those who regulate and restrict the entry of such goods as Australia and New Zealand have to sell. This worldwide tendency, moreover, may be expected to become intensified rather than diminished. With experiences during the Great War as a lesson and the sense of insecurity that now troubles them, the nations will strive to become more and more self - contained. The economists’ ideal of international trade, each country producing the commodity for which it is peculiarly adapted, cannot be realised in the present world relations. Considerations of national safety will impel each country to ensure that domestic supplies of essential foodstuffs are available to the utmost extent. Britain, which with her wealth of industrial production has in the past been so largely dependent on overseas supplies of foodstuffs, has been forced to take into serious consideration the problem of encouraging her agricultural industries. Thus there is a tendency for a contraction of markets for the products of the Dominions. The form of development regarded as most natural to Australia and New Zealand cannot proceed at the rate once confidently expected with such a brake upon its progress. It may be that both countries will have to face a process of economic readjustment, lessening their dependence on export industry, making themselves more self-contained. If so, they will be sufficiently occupied by their own economic and social problems; there will be little time to consider a migration policy, just as there will be few openings for migrants to fill. Renewal of migration at some future time should be an article of faith m both countries, but how far distant that day will be depends on many factors not subject to control by them.